There was a time about a decade ago when the arrival of Lana Del Rey truly shook the landscape of pop, like a flower crowned earthquake, draped in an American flag and looking for oxy. This was a time when pop was on the brink of burnout. Exhausted from five years of four on the floors and big room electronica, meat dresses, and the saccharine buffet of one Complete Confection, Del Rey’s drowsy retrocore felt like the benzo that pop was desperately craving (or needing). And so, this sepia toned Old Hollywood harlot with songs about death and LA sung in soft focus became the unlikely ‘next big thing.’ But try as the world might to position Lana Del Rey as a pop star akin to label mates Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani, she steadfastly fought against it. It was perhaps with Ultraviolence that it became clear she was on a Karouac beaten path of her own, but the residual assumption of Del Rey as a pop star has stuck like mud on cowboy boots. It’s an assumption that’s often painted her as a parody of herself over the years, with ‘Lana Del Rey’ becoming as much of an aesthetic device as a stage name. What’s fascinating is how Del Rey has embraced this opinion over the course of her career. She’s used it as a means to create on her own terms, churning out albums that have been shockingly audacious in context, with titles that have become a meme in their own right. The album from which A&W, her latest single, is taken is called (deep breath), Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd.
No, Lana. We did not.
A&W is possibly proves the hypothesis that Del Rey is on a mission to ‘out Lana’ herself. It’s sort of what you would imagine The Manifesto Of Lana Del Rey to sound like. Subsequently, and by virtue of this delicious self-awareness, it’s one of her strongest works to date. A&W (American Whore, if you’re nasty) is the type of song that makes its seven minutes melt away like cigarette smoke from the balcony of the Chateau Marmont, a self-contained opera that doubles as a compelling retrospective. This is every Lana that has ever been melded into one. There’s the rockabilly twang of Normal F-ing Rockwell and the melancholic cynicism of Ultraviolence on the verses. There’s the folky Americana of Chemtrails Over The Country Club on those hazy guitar plucks. Then, rather unexpectedly but totally wickedly, A&W literally drops into the bassy trap-tronica of Born To Die. Just when you think it couldn’t possibly get any better, Del Rey resurrects the voice of that jaded party girl we first met her as, and now you’re convinced this is the greatest Lana Del Rey song that has ever existed. Then there are the lyrics. Oh, the lyrics. Del Rey has always been a beat poet at heart, stringing provocative images and evocative words together as anecdotes that seem outrageous, but probable enough. Toeing the line between vaguely autobiographical and impossibly melodramatic, there’s references to art house cinema, a motel, and, perhaps most Lana of all, getting high with someone named Jimmy. It’s the Sparknotes version of her entire discography, but also her most vehement statement of intent to date. “This is the experience of an American whore,” she tells us, though she might as well be singing “This is Lana Del Rey, bitch.”
Listen to A&W below.
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